Just a bit of update.

I've been really busy with work, something that tends to happen when I like what I'm doing...

We've reset a lot of the department and it's looking great, in fact, some of the work we've done has been featured in the regional vice presidents "best practices" e-mails. And all of the performance indicators for the department are coming up roses, which is sweet. I've been able to do a lot since I moved from one of our newest stores to our smallest and oldest store. It's not the career choice that everyone would have made, but I saw a chance to make a mark and I have. My department appears weekly on the regional best performers list, even though we have the least resources of all the stores in the region.

This week I was the first to offer a cheese, Smoked Gubbeen from Ireland, (a cheese from one of the people that I visited this spring) for sale in the United States. Our store (just our store here in New Orleans) has a national exclusive... and this weekend, I will also feature this cheese at the New Orleans Food and Wine Experience. It's an event that pulls in a lot of foodies from around the country and I hope to get a bit of notice for this cheese at the event. We will also be featuring cheeses that we get from Neal's Yard of London, the wonderful exporters of the cheeses of Great Britain to the rest of the world.

This entire week is a bit much in terms of the hours I'll put in, but it should be worth the time.

On June 16, I'll be flying to upstate New York to join my family, it's a sort of family gathering. My sister and her lover Chris, (you've seen them here in the journal just recently) will be there. My Dad, who has just moved into an assisted living facility will be there. A lot of why I am going there now revolves around the fact that I need to visit my Dad in this new living space for him. As his Alzheimer's condition progresses, it's something that I need to do, to be with him in this new place.

Also, my brother and his wife will be there with my niece and my new nephew, Evan, who I haven't yet met. He'll be about three months old when I meet him. (The same age as Emma was when I met her...) I can't wait to meet him!

We will be taking the new ferry from Rochester to Toronto and staying over night, returning the next evening. We'll probably go to Ikea... and I will definately visit the Whole Foods store there, (my family is used to this thing where I have to visit every WFM store, as are most of my friends, hehe). And with any luck, I'll meet Mickey for drinks, since the rest of the family, babies and all will surely be asleep early. My brother has gotten us some choice hotel rooms right down town, convenient to everything.

Looks to be a trip that will be fun, as well as satisfying a lot of family things. We (my bro and sis and I) have to talk about dealing with my Dad's house, which we will probably sell when the market is right. I get to spend Uncle Bunny Time with my neice and new nephew. I get some time with my brother and his wife, my sister and her lover... my Dad; the whole family. And the last day that I'm there, I'll spend just with my Dad in his new place; we'll have lunch and hang around with the people that he lives with now at the assisted living place.

My Dad has only one complaint about this place, it's not his house, the place where he was used to living, but he seems to be enjoying it none the less. He loves the food, his apartment is more than comfortable and he has what seems to be the right amount of freedeom, without too many choices. As his Alzheimer's progresses fewer choices are better for him, much less stressful as he has trouble making decisions.

I'm looking forward to this time with him. About every six months or so, there's a significant decrease in his ability to deal with his surroundings, or to remember what happened in the short term, and to an increasing extent, what happened at all. Every time I see him now, I say goodby is some way. Each time I look for some way to connect to our past, our shared experience, and usually I find something, but each time the thread grows more tenuous. Each time I see him, he is farther away.

I was able to live with my Dad for four months after my Mom died, the disease was already taking him away from us, although we didn't realize it then, we were in a complex haze of denial...

For me, staying with him then seemed like career suicide, (and fortunately it was not), but I am so glad that I did it. We had a chance to tell each other how much we loved each other, not all at once... just a bit at a time just as much as each of us could handle from one moment to the next, until we had said it.

To be a man, you have to tell your dad all about who you are without telling any lies, no matter how loud you yell at each other while doing it.







durlx